Remember the Fearless
by SingingINth3Rain
Summary: "Promise?" Her blood stained hand clenched into a fist. How dare he make her care for him and then get himself shot. "I promise." Currently being revised.
1. Chapter 1

_Promise_

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything or make any profit from writing.**

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It's amazing how fast a mission can go from bad to worse.

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"Barton!" Her scream was drowned out by the deafening thunder crack of a gun fired at close range.

The impact of the bullet jerked Clint's body into the air like a puppet being played by a sick puppeteer before he crumpled to the ground.

The sickening crack of human bone meeting hard concrete echoed throughout the warehouse.

Natasha snarled with an almost animalistic ferocity as Clint's shooter attempted to escape.

The coward was right to run from her.

With a sharpshooter's perfect aim and accuracy, Natasha killed the man who shot her partner. With a single bullet the sniper's head exploded into a bloody mess of shattered skull and brain tissue.

Dread replaced rage when she rushed to Clint's prone body and crouched beside him. Her racing heart skidded to an abrupt halt and sank in despair.

.

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She was too late.

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Dead.

He was dead.

With shaking hands she checked his body for life signs. All in vain.

He looked horrible. His face was an unnatural shade of ashen-grey and his torn chest was scorched horribly. The mangled flesh around his heart bled profusely.

She didn't need a medical decree to know it was a fatal wound.

It wasn't supposed to go this way. Not like this.

Not with her partner lying in a puddle of his own blood.

Blood.

It was everywhere; staining the cold concrete crimson.

Her hands were red. Red with _his_ blood.

The unmistakable smell of blood and death permeated the air like a heavy fog.

All of a sudden Clint's body convulsed violently, making fresh blood flow out of wound on his chest. A choked sound, garbled by blood came from his throat.

Alive!

She quickly pulled his head on her lap, ignoring how her bloody hands smeared crimson over his face and hair.

"You idiot! You stupid idiot! Why did you have to go and get yourself shot?" She chastised in a strangled voice.

He convulsed again then painfully opened his eyes.

Pain-laced blue eyes met red-rimmed green eyes.

"You.. can't... get rid.. of me..that.. easy." His breaths came in ragged breaths. Natasha didn't respond to but tightened her grip on her injured partner.

"Is it... that bad?" He gasped. Another convulsion seized him and he violently began coughing up blood.

After the coughing fit stopped, Natasha gently wiped the blood away from his mouth.

"No, it's not that bad," She lied, barely keeping the tremor from her voice as she stroked his hair. "You'll be up in no time... pestering everyone in a hundred mile radius."

Clint's lips twitched in to a sad smile. "You ..were always ..a good liar. I almost.. believed you."

"I'm not lying, Barton. You'll be just fine."

"Prom..ise?"

Without hesitation Natasha replied steadily, "Of course. How am I supposed tell Fury I got his best agent killed."

Clint smiled slightly in response then jerked painfully as fresh blood flowed from his mouth. His rigid body became limp and his blue eyes glazed over in a way Natasha was way too familiar with. He had the look of death.

"Barton!"

Regardless of his injuries Natasha shook him, fear entering into her voice. "Barton, answer me!"

He remained motionless. Her voice quivered then broke.

"Clint!"

* * *

Time seemed to stand still as Natasha helplessly watched her partner die.

The blood in her ears pounded an erratic rhythm and her arms encircling her dying partner felt as heavy as lead.

Natasha was so intent on Clint's face that she hardly noticed the SHIELD agents that surrounded them. Chaos. Loud. Everyone was shouting and giving orders.

With difficulty a medical technician pried her stiff fingers off of Clint's body. SHIELD agents and medical technicians swarmed around Clint's body like a bee hive. Morosely she thought it looked more like vultures circling a corpse.

With a dazed and desolate expression, Natasha watched them carry Clint away on a stretcher. Unblinking and silent she watched as her dying partner was loaded onto the quinjet.

* * *

Never had she felt so helpless. So weak.

So many emotions. Too many emotions flowed through her head.

Grief... Apprehension... Anger...

How dare that bastard make her care for him then get himself shot.

_He better not die. He can't. He won't._

"I promise."

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**A/N** Hmm.. well that was a little more intense then I wanted to start off with for the story. Oh well.. this is where my brain led me so like a little lost puppy I followed it wherever it went. The next few chapters will hopefully be a lot more lighthearted and humorous!

Updates will be sporadic at best because this story is serving as a rest from writing the BIG stories..

Thanks for reading, Ciao!

SingingINth3Rain


	2. Chapter 2

_Remember the Fearless_

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**Disclaimer: I do not own anything or make any profit from writing.**

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**Chapter 2**

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Black.

Everything around him was black; just a bunch of desolate nothingness.

_Am I dead?_

Clint surprised himself with the thought.

_If I'm dead then how can I think?_

A faint twinge of something... _physical discomfort?_... broke through his dark surroundings and registered in his brain.

_What is that? _He thought as the strange sensation increased.

Without warning the discomfort burst into a blast of pain. The world was no longer black but an explosion of blinding white light streaked with crimson.

His chest burned with intense pain and his lungs screamed for oxygen.

_I can't breathe!_ Clint gasped for air but it never came.

A dangerous thought pushed to the front of his thoughts. _If I'm not already dead I'll soon be._

All of a sudden the air was filled with sounds; People shouting, yelling and the familiar sound of a quinjet. He strained to hear the voice he so desperately wanted to hear; a woman's husky voice.

He couldn't hear her. He couldn't breathe.

Words like "tension pneumothorax" and "collapsed lung" drifted through the fog of pain that suffocated him_. _

_They are so loud. Too loud. Why are they screaming at me?_

After what seemed to be an eternity, the explosions of blinding colors faded. The pain decreased to a blissfully dull pounding as unconsciousness gathered him to its dark embrace once more.

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Nothing. He felt nothing.

No excruciating pain in his chest or lungs burning for oxygen, just a slight twinge of something in his chest.

Actually he felt good. Better than good, positively amazing! That in its self was a little disconcerting.

Clint had been under the influence of drugs far too often to know that he was flying higher than a kite.

And he felt great!

_Wow. I wonder much pain medication they pumped into me. Wait... If I'm on pain meds... then I must still be alive! That's great!_

Clint's joy was suddenly crushed as a thought occurred to him.

_What if I'm in a coma?! How on earth would I survive with the only person to talk to is yours truly!?_

Mentally Clint kicked himself. _Get a hold of yourself, Barton!_

Internally he groaned_. How unoriginal and clichéd can you get? The hero gets shot, almost dies in a dramatic scene, and because his horrible life-threatening injuries he falls into a coma. Yah.. that's never been done before. _He thought dryly.

Natasha had always said he was a drama queen. Guess she was right.

.

_Natasha._

_._

In the clichéd story; when the hero dramatically awakes from his coma the love of his life is always right beside him, they kiss then pledge their undying love to each other. Then the most clichéd part: they live happily ever after.

Clint nearly snorted in consternation. _Like that would ever happen in real life. Especially when the love of your life happens to be a Russian assassin who knows more ways to kill you with a paper clip than a comedian has bad jokes._

_And considering she is your partner of eight years and has no idea she's the love of your life, the likelyhood of that possibility coming true is a million to one._

Clint mentally kicked himself again. _You know there's no way it's ever happening so there is absolutely no point in thinking about it. And great... now you're rambling to yourself like an old man. Not yet thirty but you're already becoming senile. Great.  
_

_Enough stalling. Time to kick a coma's butt._

* * *

Cautiously Clint opened his eyes.

Immediately he wished he'd kept them closed. Harsh white lights blinded his sensitive eyes and made black dots dance across his vision.

Once his adjusted somewhat well to the brightness, Clint peered through squinted eyes around his surroundings. _Wow. That is a lot of white_. _White walls, white lights, white sheets on a white bed. Yup. It's official; Heaven looks a lot like SHIELD medical. _

Various machines blinked and beeped around his bed. When Clint lifted his head off the _white_ pillow to get a better view of the room he noticed the bulky bandaging tied around his chest.

With an almost casual air, he thought. _Hmmm.. looks like that hurts like hell. Oh well, can't feel it so it doesn't matter._

To his left a door opened and closed quietly.

Clint narrowed his eyes suspiciously and frowned as someone entered the room. The overwhelming scent of antiseptics mixed with a musky cologne filled the room. Only one person Clint knew had that particular mixture of strange smells. _It better not be..._

A man's face, complete with a very prominent roman nose came into view.

"Richardson." Clint said the name with such contempt that a lesser man would have turned tail and fled out of the room but the man just nodded in acknowledgment, a smirk playing at his lips.

"Good to see you're awake and your vocal chords have suffered no injury. And that's Doctor Richardson to you, Agent Barton." He said with an amused glint in his eyes as Clint's face grew sour.

"What do you want?" Clint demanded through clenched teeth.

Richardson sighed in exasperation and proceeded to check and fiddle with the machines around Clint's bed. "Is that anyway to talk to the person that saved your life? In answer, I came to check on your wound like I've been doing for the past nine days."

"You're just a bloody sister of mercy, aren't you." Clint said sarcastically.

Richardson ignored the jab and gestured to Clint's bandaged chest. "It was bad. Real bad. The wound looked like burnt hamburger meat and smelled just about the same. Air was gathering in your chest cavity and one lung collapsed. You barely made it through the operation."

He paused as he replaced Clint's IV with a new bag.

"Director Fury was threatening me with demotion if I didn't save you and Agent Romanoff was going ballistic in her own cold unemotional way."

Clint remained silent as the doctor moved around him.

.

_Natasha. _

_._

In those last few seconds before he blacked out be had heard Natasha call his name. Not in a cold professional way but in a desperate personal way. Her voice had been raw with emotion. Not the voice of the Black Widow or Agent Romanoff, but just.. Natasha.

Richardson's eyes softened slightly as he took in Clint's stony expression. "She was in every single day except yesterday and today to see you."

A horrible thought occurred to Clint

"Where is she?" He asked abruptly.

Richardson was slow to respond and Clint turned impatient eyes on the doctor. "Where is she?"

"She's on a.. mission," He said slowly, "And I wasn't informed of any specific details."

Clint's eyes turned cold and his voice turned deadly soft. "And how the hell do you know she's on a mission? Aren't our missions a little above your pay grade?"

Clint's intense glare pinned the doctor to the spot. The heart rate monitor attached to Clint's wrist started to beep quickly. Richardson's eyes widened when he realized his mistake; a slip of the tongue.

Still speaking softly, Clint repeated, "How do you know, Richardson?" The doctor didn't reply but glanced uneasily at the machines surrounding the bed.

Clint's last pretence of calm dropped. "HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW!" He shouted.

The heart rate monitor reached a fevered pitch and beeped frantically.

"Calm down Barton! You're going to aggravate the wound and kill yourself!"

"TELL ME!"

"Ok, Ok!" Richardson held his hands up in surrender. "Director Fury has put the entire staff on Code Red standby for Agent Romanoff."

Silence descended into the room.

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Clint's heart dropped painfully and all anger drained out of him.

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"Code Red?" He said in shock. "Level ten, a suicide mission."

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**A/N **So that was my attempt at a cliff hanger... And man! Clint is fun to write! :)

I have decided to make this into a complete story, due to me getting tons of ideas during a final exam. (By the way, it is the WORST time to get ideas! I was pretty much steaming cause I couldn't write this story.)

Thanks for reading! Ciao!

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Just a note: A tension pneumothorax is the result of an injury where air gets into the chest cavity and can not get out. (It is also called a sucking chest wound.) As the the air builds up, it collapses the lung and puts pressure on the heart which then can't pump blood as well as it should. It is a VERY serious medical emergency.


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